This invention relates generally to the incorporation of yeast or a mixture of yeast and soy protein containing material into pasta formulations. More specifically, by the addition of these protein containing materials to pasta formulations, products having high protein levels and improved nutritional value are obtained. Additionally, the protein fortified pasta products have improved taste, texture and cooking properties.
In recent years much attention has been directed toward the development of new sources of protein which can be incorporated in foods or food additives suitable for human consumption. Rapid increases in world population have made the continued dependence on traditional sources of protein highly impractical. Moreover, the supply of protein from typical sources of protein, such as animal meat and certain vegetables, is inadequate to provide balanced diets sufficient to satisfy the needs of humans throughout the world.
In order to address this mounting problem, the food industry has been making attempts to increase the nutritional quality of pasta products through the addition of proteinaceous materials thereto. In past years, milk and eggs have been used as the proteinaceous material to provide the source of protein in certain types of pasta products. More recently, soy bean flour or soy protein isolates and concentrates have been suggested as the protein source. However, the addition of soy bean proteins to pasta formulations result in the production of pasta products characterized by light brown to a red-brown color and light beany taste. These characteristic features render the pasta product unattractive in terms of appearance as well as taste. The grayish-brown color gives a "dirty" appearance to the pasta product. The use of soy bean proteins suffers from the further disadvantage in that some soluble protein loss occurs when the pasta is cooked in water. Thus the initial high protein level of the dry pasta is significantly reduced. Surprisingly, we have discovered that the addition of yeast to the pasta formulation along with soy bean protein eliminates the disadvantages mentioned above in the use of soy bean protein alone. Thus the addition of yeast facilitates the production of high protein pasta products. Further, we have found that the addition of yeast alone to pasta formulations enables the production of pasta products with desirable nutritional, flavor, texture and cooking qualities.